This invention pertains to a sheet feeding method, and more particularly to a sheet feeding method for feeding sheets of different thicknesses from a collator.
Many sheet feeding devices use corner separators to facilitate feeding sheets individually. It is common to find jams and mis-feeds in such sheet feeding devices. No matter how reliable a system is, every now and then a sheet will stick or be misaligned causing a jam or a double feed. This is often occasioned by the fact that a sheet feeding device is required to feed both thin sheets and sheets of greater thickness, thus resulting in sheets having varying stiffness factors. When feeding thin, flexible sheets, if the feed stroke is too large the thin sheet would tend to buckle. Consequently, a short stroke would be preferable for thin sheets. On the other hand, a short stroke may not be sufficient to overcome the stiffness of sheets that are thick.
The present invention is addressed to the problem of reliability in the feeding of sheet material from a stack of sheets.